Are Scientists Sufficiently Ambitious? Season 2.

Abstract

S © t a he article “Are scientists sufficiently ambitious?” 1 is by far the ost downloaded editorial so far published in Function , and I av e had mor e personal r eactions to this piece than to any other tem presented in the journal. The reactions have overwhelmngl y been positi v e, since most collea gues a gr ee that the pr obems highlighted in the editorial are critically important. Howver, some correspondents have also made the point that it is ot sufficient to identify the pr ob lems. Solutions are needed. ence, I am now revisiting the theme, to pr opose w ays forw ard hat could rectify an increasingly difficult situation. One of the main pr ob lems identified in the original editoial was the current funding system that encourages generaion of more and more data, resulting in biologists “drowning n a sea of data and starving for knowledge.” 2 Because it is more xpensi v e to generate new data than to provide context, modls, and theories and because Uni v ersities incr easingl y ev alute staff on the basis of how much money they bring into the nstitution (overheads are essential for the sustainability of Uniersities), scientists ar e chasing r esear c h gr ants at the expense f most other acti vities. Unfortunatel y, this acti vity has become ncr easingl y time consuming, not least because the pr oba bilty of rejection is high. Many applications are written to ensure hat at least a few are successful. Even for those who mange to secur e funding, grant writing is taking up far too much ime, and for the many who fail, it is of course a waste of time. urthermore, it is not only the applicants who lose v alua b le ime. The elaborate evaluation system, which is deemed necesary to select the “best” proposals, takes a wa y time from many xperienced scientists, who serve as re vie wers and grant panel embers, time that could have been used for primary resear c h ctivities. One of the reasons for the declining success rates for grant pplications is the substantial rise in the number of applicants. his is ultimately due to increasing numbers of PhD students,